Monthly Archives: March 2012

Picasso and Einstein

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Tuesday evening was fun. My dear friend Amy French, who was hired to direct a production of Steve Martin’s play “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” had been been rehearsing her cast for a few weeks. She invited two people to come along as guests one evening to talk about Picasso and Einstein – their work discussed in the play (Cubism and Special Relativity), and the impact of their work on the world. Megan Mastroianni from the Art History department (see her in the center of the photo above – you can click it for a larger view) came along to talk about the Picasso aspect, and I talked about Einstein. It was a lot of fun, and verity informative for all concerned.

The cast were all assembled, and Einstein and Picasso were even in costume, as we […] Click to continue reading this post →

Conferring

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(Well, it’s not really the correct use of the term in the title, but I’m going to stick with it.) It has been a busy last several days, and so I’ve been quiet here. The last couple of days I’ve been at a conference in Pasadena. I’ve been enjoying the conference. There has been a host of interesting talks, and interesting people to talk to, including old friends I’m getting to catch up with a bit. It has been quite tiring though. I evidently don’t have the stamina I used to have for a schedule of eight talks in a day. Perhaps I never did.

On Thursday I managed to get an hour of David Gross’ time to sit down with me and […] Click to continue reading this post →

Downtown Quantum Mechanics

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Oddly today I had a meeting in a skyscraper in downtown LA that I’d been studying last year because I was doing a drawing of it for The Project. Funny old world. I really enjoyed being in it because from the meeting room one can view the classic public library building, a favorite of mine, from the 41st floor, and also check out the scene in the Standard rooftop bar (been a while since I’ve hung out there).

But the most unexpected thing of all was when I returned to ground level. I was walking on my way to the subway and slowed to enjoy a view of the public library, only to be faced with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in two forms, Schrodinger’s equation, and an atomic spectrum (Rydberg, Bohr, etc) that one can derive from the latter, engraved into the wall! Hurrah!

The thing is, I can’t remember whether I’ve seen this before. I’ve passed there so very […] Click to continue reading this post →

Process

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A process update, since some of you are curious about The Project.

While hiding in the desert on walkabout recently, I finished writing a story I’d been working on (one of a few I worked on), and started thumbnailing parts of it and refining the pagination of it. Thumbnails are just little sketches of how a page might be laid out, maybe focusing on how the eye might move about the page, how the words and pictures might flow, etc. There were some pages I was immediately interested to try out, and so I did larger versions of them in rough here and there (and for some other stories too)…. For one of them, I have a really exciting exchange (about symmetry and beauty) over a notepad, and I sketched over oatmeal one breakfast time a mannequin construction of the layout. (See earlier for introduction to my mannequin friends.)

Well, on Thursday and Friday I finished the rough pencils for the whole page, featuring those two figures, now given flesh and bone. Today I did the main figures for another page, with a variation on that pose of the mannequin drawing from the desert. (Vellum helps here.) I thought I’d share (click for larger view):

They’ll be refined later on, with things like scaling of various bits and pieces fixed […] Click to continue reading this post →

Opening!

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Finally!

The Expo line will be opening (after an incredibly long testing phase) on April 28th. I’ll be there, Brompton in hand, to test it out, I think. A couple of articles on it appeared in the LA Weekly and the LA Times.

I’ve been excited about this for a while, not just because there’ll be a station across the street from my office, essentially (and the fact that when phase two is completed in 2015, or thereabouts, I’ll be able to step out of my office and board a train for the beach), but because I […] Click to continue reading this post →

Piece about Science and Film

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My friend the science writer Casey Rentz wrote a nice piece about the Science Film Competition and showcase last week for Scientific American Blogs. She talks a bit about the issue of science in film, the competition, and points to some other science plus film projects too. See here.

-cvj Click to continue reading this post →

And Back…

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Well, that turned out to be a very productive Walkabout. I set up an office there, taking some of the essentials of the things I was working on and disappearing for most of the week. No computers, just pens, pencils, and paper. My office? A chair and a shelter made of thin fabric, string, two poles, and some large stones to weigh down the pegs against the wind. The shelter was against the sun, since I was in Death Valley, camping. As I sometimes do.

My routine was simple: I’d wake up at about sunrise or shortly thereafter and after a visit to the restrooms across the way to freshen up a bit, I’d get my old whisperlite stove going to make some water boiling for tea. Once that’s done, I’d make a pot of oatmeal for breakfast and sitting eating it while flicking at the gnats that seem to begin to swarm during the morning’s first heat, I’d watch the morning move along for a while, with campers across the way getting ready for their day’s hikes or drives in the area. (My hiking boots and other gear were with me just in case I wanted to hike, but that was not my focus, and I didn’t in the end.) Next I’d make a large pot of coffee (sweetened with dark brown sugar), have a cup of it then and there, and pour the rest into a thermos flash for consumption during the day. Then I’d wash up everything, put them away, and take my work materials to my office, situated just behind my tent. By then, most people have left for good or for the day in the neighboring campsites, and it is quiet, except for the large ravens that tour the […] Click to continue reading this post →

Science and Food!

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Yes, two of your favorite things, right?

I thought so. Well, consider signing up to my friend Amy Rowat’s special new course at UCLA on the subject. It will feature many fantastic chefs from some of the finest restaurants around the city and beyond, as well as some excellent food writers. The course will have a wealth of wonderful information (like at the answers to why carrots are sweeter in the Winter), and hands on practice to get involved in. I think the course is only open to UCLA students (who should be sure to register fast to get on the limited list), but there are four public events (I think you might have to register for those too, as space it limited). See the list of events here. I’ve mentioned Amy and her work here on the blog before, soho and have a look at the earlier post for more about her work at UCLA, and go here for more on the Rowat Lab. (See also a recent article featuring her lab’s work on food science in UCLA’s Prime magazine’s Winter 2012 edition.)

Now, even if you do not make it over to UCLA, you can check you the excellent […] Click to continue reading this post →

Looking Again at Los Angeles

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My friend and colleague the author Aimee Bender wrote a piece for AFAR magazine recently about the process of her rediscovering Los Angeles over the years. Seeing it from outside the car, on foot, on a bike, and on the bus. You know, the way you see it a lot here through your Asymptotia-tinged spectacles. It appears in the March/April issue, and you can see it here. (I must say, that British guy she runs into seems like hard work… geez…!)

-cvj Click to continue reading this post →

Storyboard Extract

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On Sunday night I needed to throw together an illustrative graphic to communicate some of the design I want on the film I mentioned earlier I’m working on.

There was a meeting the next morning, and so I wanted to pretty it all up and put some narrative text on the side, as part of a larger report. This is part of what I came up with. I’ll spare you the text, and the later images I’ll perhaps show later.

I’ve no explanation other than it is (if filmed) a sequence involving watching a hand […] Click to continue reading this post →

Tasty Salad

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Saw these on campus the other day. I’ve forgotten what these are called, but I am always impressed with them.

They are part of a set of ornamental plants that in another closely related universe would (along with their neighbors) perhaps feature more on our dinner plates than in gardens, I fancy. I must try to find their name at some point.

But the point here is that I’ve never really studied their flowers before… They’re amazing and unexpected in form!

-cvj Click to continue reading this post →